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Of Rhymed Couplets, and Raunchy, Too

Before a wildly hooting audience of 300, New York University trounced Bard and Sarah Lawrence Colleges when their teams clashed in the latest trend to hit campuses: competitive poetry performance, or ''slam.''

Borrowing from such disciplines as mud-wrestling, goldfish-swallowing and un-Hamletlike tearing a passion to tatters, the event at Sarah Lawrence in Yonkers, N.Y., last Thursday was billed as the World's First Intercollegiate Competitive Poetry Performance.

The slam consists of several poets reciting their work before a panel of judges. The more boisterous the better. The lyrics are frequently raunchy and the atmosphere rowdy, with performers being cheered, booed, hissed, challenged from the floor and -- on occasion -- actually tackled, or slammed, into silence.

The slam, so named in the mid-1980's by Marc Smith, a Chicago barroom poet, was until recently confined to coffee houses or taverns, like the Green Mill in Chicago where Mr. Smith still holds forth. But today, the slam has become so popular that some English professors call it a new art form while others denounce it as fiercely, as if staving off an assault by barbarians. It is sure to be a hot topic at the annual convention of the Modern Language Association in San Francisco later this month.

At the intercollegiate event, Patrick Anderson, a wiry drama major at New York University and the competition's highest-scoring participant, brought the audience to its feet when he racked up 27.93 points out of 30. His work was explosive and decidedly X-rated. Among the more tame verses of the poem ''I Know a Secret Way of Making Love'' were:

College students find it an antidote for youthful Angst. ''It gave me an outlet I didn't have before,'' said Susan Somers-Willett, a slam champ who is a doctoral student in English at the University of Texas.

The question of whether slam can rise to the level of art inspires great debate. The Modern Language Association, which seeks to foster the study and teaching of language and literature, has commissioned Sally Placksin, an independent radio producer, to create a program for National Public Radio on the oral tradition of poetry from Homer to slam.

Phyllis Franklin, executive director of the association, explained: ''We think slam is worth studying to show the connections between the ancient oral tradition and that of modern poetry.''

Walter Herbert, a professor of 19th-century American literature at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Tex., said: ''Slam is intentionally contra-genteel, but must not be dismissed for that reason. Mark Twain had a significant career as a platform comedian and throughout his life was seen -- like slam -- as somewhat disreputable. Slam is bringing a new vitality to poetry.''

Marjorie Perloff, a professor of English at Stanford University, also approves. ''It's probably a corrective for the pompous poetry readings of the 80's,'' she said.

Not everyone agrees. The eminent Yale professor Harold Bloom said this week that although he has never attended a slam he has read some of the contest winners and found them ''of a badness not to be believed.''

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Harvard's Helen Vendler, another well-known professor of modern poetry, said she had attended slams and considered the work ''not a new art form, but a new social form, a new type of social gathering.''

Bob Holman, a poet, slammer and Bard teacher, said Ms. Vendler was blind to performance values. ''She does some wonderful things with text analysis,'' he said, ''but doesn't seem to realize that slam performance takes us back to the origins of poetry, which is an oral art that engages the audience viscerally.''

The poet Richard Tillinghast, a professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, said he did not mind the performance part. ''What I don't like about slam is when the audience votes,'' he said. ''It's crazy to have the crowd pass judgment on any art.''

That is precisely what attracts David Lehman, a poetry professor at Bennington College who edited ''The Best of the Best American Poetry'' (Scribner Poetry, 1998). ''Making a poetry reading into a competitive event adds a new flavor, a new possibility,'' he said. ''It makes poetry exciting to young people.''

The world's first intercollegiate slam began when Robert Elstein, a high-spirited, bushy-haired Sarah Lawrence junior who performs under the name Keystone, raced around the stage several times. He welcomed ''my 17 current girlfriends in the audience'' and explained that each of the 16 competing poets would have five minutes. Spectators were encouraged to be vocal about likes and dislikes. Five judges scattered in the audience would score the performers and decide which school won.

No sooner had Keystone got this far than a man zipped across the stage and floored him, setting off an ear-splitting round of laughter, cheering and applause.

The tackler turned out to be Mr. Holman, the Bard professor and co-host for the evening.

The sexual explicitness Mr. Anderson favored was also seen in other poets. Amanda Nazario of New York University fantasized about having ''acrobatic sex on the dining room table,'' and Marisa Vurale of Bard scolded a former lover with such intensity that the manuscript she was holding literally smoked (from burning incense, it developed).